The Maze procedure is a surgical treatment for patients with chronic atrial fibrillation that is resistant to other treatments. The Maze procedure uses incisions in the right and left atria to divide the atria into electrically isolated portions, which in turn results in an orderly passage of the depolarization wave front from the sino-atrial node to the atrial-ventricular node, while preventing reentrant wave front propagation. Although successful in treating atrial fibrillation, the Maze procedure can be quite complex and is currently performed by a limited number of highly skilled cardiac surgeons in conjunction with other open-heart procedures. As a result of the complexities of the Maze procedure, there has been an increased level of interest in procedures employing electrosurgical devices or other types of ablation devices, (e.g., thermal ablation, micro-wave ablation, radio frequency or RF ablation, and cryo-ablation) to ablate tissue along pathways approximating the incisions of the Maze procedure.
Three basic approaches have been used to create elongated lesions with electrosurgical devices. The first approach is to create a series of short lesions using a contact electrode, moving it along the surface of the organ wall to be ablated to create a linear lesion. This can be accomplished either by making a series of lesions, moving the electrode between lesions, or by dragging the electrode along the surface of the organ to be ablated and continuously applying ablation energy. The second approach to creation of elongated lesions is to use an elongated electrode and to place the elongated electrode along the desired line of lesion along the tissue. The third approach to creation of elongated lesions is to provide a series of electrodes and arrange the series of electrodes along the desired line of lesion. The electrodes may be activated individually or in sequence. In the case of multi-electrode devices, individual feedback regulation of ablated energy applied via the electrodes may also be employed.
In conjunction with the use of electrosurgical ablation devices, various control mechanisms have been developed to control the delivery of ablation energy to achieve the desired result of ablation (i.e., killing of cells at the ablation site, while leaving the basic structure of the organ to be ablated intact). Such control systems include measurement of temperature and impedance at or adjacent to the ablation site, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,681, issued to Struhl, et al.
Additionally, there has been substantial work done toward assuring that the ablation procedure is complete, i.e., that the ablation extends through the thickness of the tissue to be ablated, before terminating application of ablation energy. This desired result is sometimes referred to as a “transmural” ablation. For example, detection of a desired drop in electrical impedance of the tissue being ablated at the electrode site as an indicator of transmurality is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,721 issued to Marchlinski et al. Alternatively, detection of an impedance rise or an impedance rise following an impedance fall is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,671 issued to Yates and U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,684 issued to Hassler, respectively.
Previous transmurality algorithms were fundamentally based on the concept of identifying a flat impedance curve or plateau in response to an increase in power of ablation energy output to determine transmurality. However, there are many situations in which the flattened impedance curve does not remain plateaued long enough for the algorithm to determine that the flattened impedance curve indicates transmurality. The ablation is allowed to continue, which can sometimes cause the impedance curve to rise as a result of increased temperature (this usually occurs in fatty, inhomogeneous, or thicker tissues). Therefore, ablation is not terminated until the detection of an impedance rise followed by a minimum time delay or by reaching the high impedance limit. This is an inefficient method for performing a transmural ablation and can result in over-ablation.